Page 114 of Quest for her Knights
Ranger glances at each of us before he asks, “But what if she does?”
Chapter thirty-five
Elora
“Come on Elora, you’ve got to get up, it’s starting soon,” Freya says from where she sits on the side of my bed.
“I don’t want to get up. I hate this place. They don’t even have ice cream here,” I mumble from where I’m hiding under the covers.
“I promise it’s not that bad,” she said, for the millionth time as she pulls the blanket back to reveal my tear-stained cheeks. “You’ve been crying again.”
“Don’t look at me like that. You got to marry the men you love.”
“That’s true. But they are my soulmates.”
“Soulmates?” I don’t think I’ve heard anyone mention that before.
“Yeah, it’s like this feeling in my heart that knows that they belong with me. Like we’re connected. When I’m not with them it’s like it’s calling out for them, and when we’re close, it seems to almost hum in approval.”
I think about the way I feel about my knights. It feels a lot like what she’s describing. “Do you think I could have soulmates here, too?” I ask with hope.
“Who knows! You haven’t even met all the lords yet, I bet some of them are really nice. Maybe you’ll feel a connection there?” I glare at her and her shoulders slump. “I’m sorry Elora. I tried to get them to reason with you, but they refuse to let you go after them. Besides, they left you here, are you sure you really want them?”
I growl at her and her eyes widen in surprise as she pulls her hand back, as if I might bite her. “I told you they didn’t leave me. They’d never leave. The kings and queen must have forced them off the castle grounds.”
I spend most of the days here staring out my window, hoping to catch sight of them. Some sort of signal to tell me they're out there waiting for me. But I’ve seen nothing.
“The princes went looking. It seems they didn’t hang around anywhere close by.”
I know Freya isn’t trying to hurt my feelings, but the tiniest bit of doubt creeps in at her words. What if they did leave? What if they thought I was too much work to stay for?
“Look, you may as well get dressed. You don’t want the queen in here forcing you to bathe, do you?”
“No,” I grumble as she moves out of the way, allowing me to swing my feet to the floor. I’ve been shut in my room for the past month. Four weeks have passed since I last saw my knights.
Four excruciating weeks.
It’s not like I’m being detained, I just can’t stand to see the kings or queen. Every time I do, it makes me angry. And with the abundance of knights now stationed around the castle, I can’t step outside without at least three trailing me. Seeing knights that aren’t mine makes my chest ache.
I can still feel them out there. The tethers between us hum constantly in my chest, but without being near them, without being able to touch them, they pull tight, straining painfully. Like my heart is calling out with no one to answer, that sounds an awful lot like what Freya just described as soulmates.
Making my way to the ensuite, I glance out the window. From here, I can see the edge of the field where they’re setting up for the tournament.
Freya joins me, pressing her cheek to the glass for a better view.
“Don’t you think it’s even a little exciting? Imagine, all those lords competing in a tournament for your hand!”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if you’d met some of them,” I mutter.
She’s quiet for a moment before asking, “Are they really that bad?”
I turn to face her. “The first ones we met had books about how to train your wife using corporal punishment.”
Her eyes widen. “Seriously?”
“There were chapters about locking her in a closet if she stepped out of line.”
“Oh shit.”
